Sats exam farce

More than half a million pupils in England are to start the new "national" curriculum in September 2014, only to be tested on the old one in 2015, the Department for Education has confirmed.

In what looks like the latest in a succession of problems for the curriculum review, the current English and maths Sats tests for 11-year-olds will not be changed in time for the launch of the new curriculum in September 2014, and will continue to be set for schools during the following year, and possibly longer. This will affect pupils now in year 4, who will take the tests in 2015.

In an email to the teacher blogger Michael Tidd the Department for Education said: "The [Sats] tests must reflect the current statutory curriculum only, [so] I can confirm that we cannot use anything from the draft curriculum as a basis for test content until 2016 at the earliest.

"This will mean that students … ending key stage 2 in 2015 will be taught under the new curriculum for the academic year 2014-15, but assessed under the old curriculum in 2015."

This could create practical difficulties, with subjects including data handling and probability given more prominence in the old curriculum than in the new.

Tidd says many schools are likely to continue teaching the old curriculum to year 6 from September 2014, as Sats results are so important. "It is farcical," he says. The DfE did not respond to requests for comment.

Direct marketing

Another example reaches us of seemingly overzealous marketing for the government's controversial new School Direct teacher training programme. Last month, we reported that the National College for Teaching and Leadership sent an email to would-be trainees, some of whom had already applied for conventional postgraduate certificate in education courses, encouraging them to consider instead trying School Direct, where provision is centred on schools rather than universities.

Last week, the NCTL sent an email to those on its database headlined "School Direct: a new way to train teachers". Underneath was a case study of a school where School Direct trainees had reportedly helped bring about a rapid rise in maths GCSE results. Yet School Direct was only introduced last September, meaning no relevant GCSE results have yet been produced. The NCTL now accepts that the school's results could not have been affected by School Direct trainees, and has "tightened up its approval systems for future promotional material".

Meanwhile, an online survey of 730 members of the National Association for the Teaching of English – 538 of them teachers – found 92% believed the advent of School Direct would lower the quality of initial teacher education; 78% said schools did not have the time to lead teacher education provision.

Ofsted and out

Claims that Ofsted inspectors are a little too eager to fail schools that are being prepared to become academies do not seem to go away. Suspicions have been aroused by last month's verdict on Roke primary school, Surrey, which placed the formerly "outstanding" school in special measures just as it prepares to be taken over by the Harris chain, something Roke parents campaigned against.

Comments in the report such as "too little teaching is consistently good" seem to some a questionable basis for Ofsted's worst possible overall verdict. Parents who fought the school's forced academisation have written to the inspectorate to complain, while sending flowers to the teachers. The report also comments on high staff turnover – Roke is reportedly losing 70% of teachers this year – which parents say has been heavily influenced by the takeover process.

Meanwhile, parents at Abbey Meadows primary in Cambridge, which also faces becoming an academy, were aghast to read its recent inspection report, which branded the school "inadequate", and teaching "inadequate" overall, seemingly mainly on the basis of poor teacher assessment results in year 2. Its data for older children suggest "all groups of pupils make good progress", a rapid improvement last year and better results than most "similar schools".

For both schools, almost all respondents completing Ofsted's "parent view" survey were positive about provision.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: "We do not have a preferred model for schools nor are we furthering any political agenda. The decision to judge a school inadequate is not made lightly."